HTML for Managers - Thursday January 11 2001    

Perhaps the most hilariously absurd result of Black Monday's layoffs is the fact that now I overhear highly-paid product managers talking about how they've gone out and bought HTML For Dummies so they can now do the work that used to be done by the low-paid code monkeys whose jobs no longer exist. Sometimes I wonder if it's possible that there will ever be that one last absurdity that is so utterly ridiculous that the whole rotting edifice of nonsense comes crashing down.

There is now a Webcam running in my living room; I set it up during lunch and it mostly points at the television. I don't know how John feels about it; every time he is at the computer he immediately quits the application driving it. I've tried to find a freeware program that works more covertly in the background, but I've had no success.

The weather continues to behave oddly. It was clear and sunny with unusually cold air throughout the day, but at night it started raining again. Yesterday it was so humid that the electric sparking mechanism that ignites the gas in my condo's heating unit refused to spark, but tonight it started working again. I find it amusing that in Southern California things are judged to work if they only function when it's not raining.